May 05, 2008

Seeing is Believing: Rapid Multi-Year Sea Ice Loss in Arctic

The best information exchange is that which can be easily replayed in the mind of the recipient.

Thomas Homer-Dixon sent an email around about satellite images of sea-ice movement in the Arctic basin that suggest that huge quantities of multi-year sea ice have been flushed out of the basin in the last six months.

The video clip available is a low-resolution reproduction of a sequence of satellite images of Arctic ice. The sequence runs in a continuous loop from October 01, 2007, to March 15, 2008.

Note the stream of multi-year ice flowing out of the Arctic basin down the east coast of Greenland at one o'clock in the image.

As of the middle of March, most of the basin, including the pole itself, appears to be covered by only seasonal ice. The remaining multi- year ice is concentrated north of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. If the seasonal ice disappears this summer, open ocean water will stretch across most of the Arctic basin.

Scientists do not fully understand the mechanisms behind this rapid export of mutli-year ice. It appears to be the result of a combination of warmer water moving into the Arctic from the north Pacific and anomalous winds (influenced by the warmer water) that are directing ice out of the basin.

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Seeing is Believing: Rapid Multi-Year Sea Ice Loss in Arctic

The best information exchange is that which can be easily replayed in the mind of the recipient.

Thomas Homer-Dixon sent an email around about satellite images of sea-ice movement in the Arctic basin that suggest that huge quantities of multi-year sea ice have been flushed out of the basin in the last six months.

The video clip available is a low-resolution reproduction of a sequence of satellite images of Arctic ice. The sequence runs in a continuous loop from October 01, 2007, to March 15, 2008.

Note the stream of multi-year ice flowing out of the Arctic basin down the east coast of Greenland at one o'clock in the image.

As of the middle of March, most of the basin, including the pole itself, appears to be covered by only seasonal ice. The remaining multi- year ice is concentrated north of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. If the seasonal ice disappears this summer, open ocean water will stretch across most of the Arctic basin.

Scientists do not fully understand the mechanisms behind this rapid export of mutli-year ice. It appears to be the result of a combination of warmer water moving into the Arctic from the north Pacific and anomalous winds (influenced by the warmer water) that are directing ice out of the basin.